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Wednesday, 22 June 2011

Downhill all the way to December

Yesterday evening, the sun reached its northernmost point in the sky, the summer solstice. This morning we had the year's earliest sunrise, which I woke up early this morning to photograph. And I was in luck - a totally overcast sky would have been no good, while a cloudless sky would have yielded a dull photo. So here it is - untweaked in Photoshop - the image as captured directly on my Nikon D40's chip - the earliest sunrise of the year, 2011.

Click on the image to see it full size on your monitor; look into the sun and meditate upon the meaning of light and life...

From now on, until 22 December, the day's length will get shorter and shorter. Today, we have in Warsaw 16 hours and 51 minutes of daylight. By 22 December, it will be 7 hours and 38 minutes. But no need to fall into Seasonal Affective Disorder just yet - over the next month, we'll lose less than 50 minutes of daylight - the shorter days only start getting noticeable around the end of August (although there's an old Polish saying 'od Św. Anki, zimne noce i chłodne poranki' - from St. Anne's Day - 26 July - the nights get cold and mornings cool.)

Astronomically (rather than meteorologically) speaking, summer has only now begun, though the year - and the sun - is now in the descendent. For me summer starts when I can set off for work in the morning wearing only one layer. In six months time we'll be wrapped up in multiple layers of thick clothing, shivering at bus stops and eking out those few hours of daylight at the weekends having travelled to and from work in darkness. But for now let us be merry. There's an old English saying 'make hay while the sun shines'.

It was 70 years ago this morning when Hitler's Germany mounted an all-out attack on the Soviet Union - Operation Barbarossa - the largest military operation in human history, an event crucial in understanding the history of this region. Which prompts me to link a link that my cousin Teresa sent me from Canada - a review of Timothy Snyder's crucial book, Bloodlands. It's just come out in Poland, and is billboard-advertised, so big sales are expected here. The book has had outstanding critical reviews since publication, and will enter the canon of central and eastern European studies.

This time last year:
What do I want for Poland

This time two years ago:
Summer holiday starts drizzly

This time three years ago:
Israeli Boeing 707 visits Okęcie
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5 comments:

  1. Paddy22 June 2011 at 11:50

    I finished Bloodlands last week and still I'm not sure what to make of it. Content wise it is meme changing and has completely changed my understanding of the Soviet-Nazi dynamic in relation to the "bloodlands" but style wise it was a relentless, breathless battering of statistics almost completely without colour.

    Despite Snyder's avowed intent to use individuals' stories to flesh out the picture, it occasionally felt for me a rather emotionless book, but my experience in this respect is clearly different to the reviewer's that you've linked to. I'd be interested in your opinion if you buy it.

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  2. basia22 June 2011 at 16:26

    hi:
    here in Toronto, our longest day is shorter than Wawa's : 15 hours, 27 minutes.
    Our shortest day is 8 hours, 55 minutes.

    Been waiting for AGES for you to finally read "Bloodlands", wanted to discuss it with you. I think I mentioned that the book finally compelled me to watch Katyn last fall.

    BTW, I just received a copy of "Z Glowy" which I plan to take with me to the Rockies as my "holiday" book.

    B

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  3. White Horse Pilgrim26 June 2011 at 01:21

    The way that the weather has been lately in the UK, 'making hay whilst the sun shines' is a most appropraite saying. You had a brighter solstice than I did.

    It seems curious that the matter of what happened in the debatable lands between Europe and Russia are still being elucidated. It has taken a very long time. I am glad that truth is being sought at last. My experience of Eastern Europe included supposedly educated people hiding behind untruth and half-truth in order to suppress the more unpalatable parts of the collective unconsious. The more truth that is published and promoted, the better.

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  4. Sean26 June 2011 at 21:29

    Thanks again for the great photo.

    I planned to take my son to the top of Luton on the morning of the 21st to view the sunrise but it was a very cloudy morning. All the info I found dated the Solstice on the 21st, is that correct?

    As Warsaw is 21.5 degrees east of London, the time is actually one and a half hours ahead.

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  5. Michael Dembinski26 June 2011 at 22:05

    Sean - Solstice Day is indeed 21 June, the longest day. The actual moment of the 2011 Summer Solstice was around 17:00 UTC (or GMT) on the 21st; this is when the sun reaches its northernmost extreme (from the globe's perspective). Having said that, the earliest sunrise is the one nearest that moment in time - and this year, this was the sunrise on the 22nd.

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